VIJAYAWADA: Condemning the arrest of former minister and TDLP deputy leader K Atchannaidu, TDP leaders launched a broadside against the YSRC government. Accusing Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy of stifling the voice of a Backward Class (BC) leader, the TDP leaders faulted the police for climbing the walls of his residence, entering his bedroom and taking away him without even allowing him to take his medicines.
They also faulted the timing of the arrest, in the wee hours of the day and a few days before the Assembly session. Leading the attack, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu warned of serious consequences if the government did not stop persecution of BCs and other weaker sections. He gave a call to the people to organise virtual protests, in view of the COVID crisis, across the State against the government.
Naidu also expressed doubts on the YSRC government completing its remaining four years, going by its outright attacks on the Constitution, judiciary, media and legislature. He alleged that Atchannaidu was arrested based on a “cooked-up and fabricated’ report by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials in the alleged ESI scam.
Atchannaidu’s name did not even figure in the original Vigilance report as he could not be implicated as per the purchase manual, which cites no role for the minister concerned, he claimed. “He underwent surgery for piles recently. Hundreds of policemen made a pre-dawn raid and arrested him as if he was a dacoit or a terrorist. Atchannaidu stood by his ideology and values even though he was offered benefits of hundreds of crores of rupees to shift his family’s political loyalties. Only after that, he was arrested as part of a conspiracy to wipe out the TDP. Such vain efforts were going on for the last 40 years,” Naidu observed.